All week long, the Eagles were chirping about how they were going after Tiki Barber’s fractured left arm and how they were going to swipe and rip at the ball when the Giants running back carried it.

“I’m going to be doing the same things I’ve done all year,” Barber said earlier in the week when asked about the Eagles defense preying on his arm. “This thing doesn’t concern me. If they want to focus on it, fine. For me, it’s nothing out of the ordinary, just a little pain to play with.”

One Eagle in particular, running back Brian Mitchell, spoke in the newspapers about how the Philadelphia defense had to go after Barber’s arm. Mitchell’s teammates seem not to have listened.

On the Giants’ third play from scrimmage, Barber caught a screen pass from his own 33. He scampered in front of the Giants bench as he went out of bounds. Keying on the left arm Barber had between him and the field, OLB Barry Gardener drove right through the exposed arm, encased in a fiberglass cast, when the Giants back was clearly out of bounds.

In what was the Eagles’ only blatant attack on Barber’s arm, Gardener had a flag thrown at him, as well as a number of fingers from the Giants sideline, resulting in a 15-yard personal foul call.

But yesterday, after Giants 20, Eagles 10, Mitchell wasn’t quite so free with his speech and the pain was all Philadelphia’s.

“I’m not going to say anything because you’re going to write whatever you all want anyway,” Mitchell said.

In the end, Barber had a below-average day. He gained just 35 yards on 15 carries, the longest going for nine yards.